OCT- DEC 2014

Page 29

RECYCLING OF PLASTIC BOTTLES INTO YARN &

TECHNICAL

clearly predominant recycling method to date. Here, plas c waste is melted directly without any chemical decomposion. The melt can then be either processed directly into the end product or first granulated into chips. There is a current trend towards systems for in-house recycling of produc on waste in the form of chips. Recycling systems available on the market can process various forms of waste, including solid start-up lumps, for instance. To this end, the waste is shredded, melted and re-granulated. Processed in this way, it can then be simply reintroduced to the produc on cycle.

• • •

PÙÊ֛Ù㎛Ă?: R›‘Ú‘½ŽĂ„ÂŚ FÂƒÂ‘ĂŁĂ? • 10 plas c bo les = 1 pound of polyester fiber • 1 ton (2000) lbs of plas c bo les recycled saves 3.8 barrels of oil • 1 million plas c bo les recycled saves 250 barrels of oil • 1 million plas c bo les recycled eliminates 180 metric tons of CO2 emissions from being released into the atmosphere • 10% of all US oil consumed (2 million barrels per day) is used to make plas cs • Recycling plas c bo les takes 8 mes less energy than to produce an equivalent amount of new ones • 150 fleece garments made from recycled plas c bo les save 1 barrel of oil • 500 t-shirts made from recycled plas c bo les saves 1 barrel of oil • 50 back packs made from recycled plas c bo les saves 1 barrel of oil • Supplying the plas c bo les that Americans consume each year requires 47 million barrels of oil and releases 1.0 billion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere

HĂŠĂł —Ê ÚÊç ãçÙÄ ƒ ¼›ó Ă–½ÂƒĂ?㎑ Â?ĂŠãã½Â›Ă? ÂŽĂ„ĂŁĂŠ Ă–ĂŠ½Ú›Ă?ã›Ù ÂƒĂ„Â— Ă–Â›Ă™ÂĽĂŠĂ™ĂƒÂƒĂ„Â‘Â› ÂƒĂ–Ă–ÂƒĂ™Â›½? It all starts when you toss a PET bo le (labeled #1) into a recycling bin. These bo les are sorted at a recycling facility and bundled together in large bales. The bales of PET bottles are then taken to a PET reclaiming facility. The bo les are thoroughly cleaned, the labels and caps are removed, and the bo les are separated by color (the clear bo les will produce a white-ish polyester yarn and the green bo les produce a green-ish yarn). Once they’re sorted, the bo les go into a grinder where they are ground into small flakes. The flakes are tossed in hot air to give them a hard candy coa ng and then dried to remove any remaining moisture. Next, the dry, crispy flakes are shoved through hot pipes to melt them into a thick liquid. That liquid gets filtered through a dye plate with 68 ny holes. As the liquid polyester flows through the holes, it forms filaments that are more than five mes finer than human hair. The filaments pool and harden and are then sent over rollers where air entangles the filaments to create a dental floss-like yarn. The machine spools the yarn and then pulls it over hot metal rollers to stretch it and realign the polyester molecules. The resul ng yarn is ready to be woven into polyester clothing.

FÂŽÂ?›Ù ÂƒĂ„Â— YÂƒĂ™Ă„ CĂŠĂ„Ă?ĂŁĂ™ç‘ãŽÊÄ CÂƒĂ–ÂƒÂ?Ž½ŽãŽÂ›Ă? • FIBERS: All natural and manmade fibers and blends • OPEN-END: .4Ne. to 14Ne. or .67Nm to 23.6Nm. in singles and plies • DREF SPUN: Customized solu ons and proprietary capabili es • TWISTING: Up to 16 components

PET ٛ‘Ú‘½ŽĂ„ÂŚ ÖÙʑ›Ă?Ă? • PET bo les are sorted from other recyclable plas cs such as PVC and HDPE, as the reclaimed material (PET flakes) is most valuable when it is most pure • bales of recycled bo les are sorted manually or automa cally on the basis of colour, and to remove any foreign material or non-PET lids and bases • the plas c is washed in a sterilising bath, a er which the clean containers are dried and crushed into ny flakes

P½ÂƒĂ„ ĂŠÂĽ óÊٝ SÊÙãŽÄŒ When the PET bo le is returned to an authorized redemp on center, or to the original seller in some jurisdicons, the deposit is partly or fully refunded to the redeemer. In both cases the collected post-consumer PET is taken to recycling centers known as materials recovery facili es (MRF) where it is sorted and separated from other materials such as metal, objects made out of other rigid plas cs such as PVC, HDPE, polypropylene, flexible plas cs such as those used for bags (generally low density polyethylene), drink cartons, glass, and anything else which is not made out of PET.

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Post-consumer PET is o en sorted into dierent color frac ons: transparent or uncolored PET, blue and green colored PET, and the remainder into a mixed colors frac on. The emergence of new colors (such as amber for plas c beer bo les) further complicates the sor ng process for the recycling industry.

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the flakes are washed again to ensure the purest possible final product these flakes become the raw material for new products for yarn, the light-coloured flakes are bleached, while flakes from darker bo les are used for yarn that will be dyed a dark colour; the flakes are melted in a vat and forced through spinnerets to produce fibres

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PÙʗç‘ãŽÊÄ ÖÙʑ›Ă?Ă? ¼½ĂŠĂł 27

TEXTILE VALUE CHAIN | OCT - DEC 2014 www.textilevaluechain.com

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